The Black Nerd: The Silent Gate Keepers Of Black Society

I want my daughters to be nerds! I mean really nerdy ass geeky smart black girls because cool kids get into too much trouble. I want my daughters to be a bunch of no perm having, ugly dress wearing, overbite but I don’t give a fuck little Michelle Obama’s. I don’t want to have to be chasing their fast asses around trying to make sure they are out getting into mischief with these knuckle head niggas in the streets. I don’t want them watching MTV and BET and feeling like that’s what they are suppose to measure up to and that that’s how they are suppose to walk, talk, dress and think like my little nimrod sister does.

One of my sisters is bizarre introvert klepto nerd with an obsessive whining disorder but at least she’s not a runner, and most likely her socially changed bizarre superman ass will end up being a lawyer or something successful along those lines.

While my other sister is a halfway emo skinny jean wearing weed smoking Rihanna clone (even down to the hair cut) with the figure of a 12-year old boy and she’s quite fast. She may very well be a runner for all I know and I ain’t talking about like Jackie Joyner-Kersee. She lives her life based on how MTV, BET & Lil Weezy show her how to behave and lets that influence and ultimately determine her priorities in life. She dates these knuckle head played out thug-type niggas that think they are Game or some other equivalent gang-affiliated rapper. She lets these pea brains who can’t see the forest from the trees be the guiding light in her life and none of us (her family) really know what she’s going to turn out to be. Is she going to get over this faze and become a functioning member of society or is she going to be another confused bitter black woman 25 with 3 kids, low self worth trying to hit the club at get impregnated by a rich nigga or ball player? Only time will tell.

For this reason I want my daughters to be nerds especially now that the Obama’s put the black nerd on the map, a traditionally underrepresented group. The black nerd never get their just do, never get a shout out on a T.I song, never get their own reality show like Real Chance At Nerd or I Love Nerd-York. You never see the nerds in the music videos balancing puffy’s balance sheet why he’s poppin’ bottles and pouring champagne on strippers asses. The black nerd has been the rock of the black community for longer that you would imagine yet they have been underrepresented in the media for sure and often shunned as being unauthentic. But the fact remains that though all this they have held the black community together (literally) through our many ups and downs.

The black nerd is all around you. They’re the brother of the cool kid (that he never talked about) that grows up to an accountant and takes care of the family while the cool brother knocks up 3 or 4 chicks and can’t keep a steady job at 30 and finally settles down with an Asian woman and moves to Glendale. The black nerds are the lawyers and businessmen and women in those high rises downtown doing all the work while their white bosses take all the credit (I Think I Love My Wife for more info). They’re the community organizers that actually get shit done in the inner city while the popular niggas is still spending their days scheming on how to get money without actually getting a job or holding on to their NBA pipe dreams. The black nerd's running for city council because he’s tired of the dismal conditions in his neighborhood while the cool are spending what little money they do have fixing up their 64 so they can cruise up and down the shaw (Crenshaw Blvd for my slang impaired readers) living out their rap music video fantasies in their head. While so many of these niggas is on MySpace wearing rags on their face throwing up gang signs or doing their best little Wayne impressions, the black nerd is hitting the books hard on his way to medical school. The doctors, nurses, lawyers, accountants, administrators, councilmen, community organizers, business owners, CEO’s and Teachers these are the black people that keep us a float but you won’t see them on the cover of Vibe or even being fairly represented on TV or in movies. They’re not doing glamorous thing or in search of the spotlight they’re not in their moms basement with fruity loops missing work trying to write the next “Ay Bay Bay” or “Lean Wit It Rock Wit It”. They’re at work “on time” getting it done, talking care of the business so that the rest of these knuckle can fuck around till they’re 30 trying to act like the mutha fuckas they see on TV and listen to on the radio before they get serious about life. They’re holding it down while you’re fuckin’ around.

The black nerd is nothing like the black people you see on TV and for good reason. If our entire races was as one dimensional as we are represented in the media then we would collapsed as a society a long time ago. Black people are far more than rappers, actors and ball players though those are our only representatives on TV. And with the death of the Black sitcom what are the young generation who are essentially raised by TV to think of themselves and their place in society? Can’t be much when TV shows like the Cosby’s and Fresh prince have been replaced by shows like Keyshia Cole: The Way It Is (that ghetto mess) and Doggy Fizzle Televizle further limiting the spectrum of diverse black images in the media. Common said it best as he talked about his daughter after the Obama’s was elected "2 years ago, my daughter wanted to be a dancer. Now she says she can be the next president.” Rise black nerds rise!!!!!

And personally I’m excited to see the black nerd charging to the forefront of black society, because it’s about damn time that black societies silent gatekeepers finally have a voice, even if it is boring and non-threatening.

More articles on the black nerd from the black blogosphere (an underground hub for black nerds as of late):

http://www.zimbio.com/member/blacksnob/articles/1174242/Barack+Obama+Ride+Die+Black+Nerd

Black Nerd List
http://camille-flauntit.blogspot.com/2008/07/black-nerd.html

or just type in Black Nerd into Google and you’ll see where they all be hiding…On blogs and at comic book conventions all across the nation.